Journey Reflection: Essay III Final
Editing this paper has been a bit of a weird experience. Writing it the first time, the whole process was a bit labored and the words didn’t flow and excite me like they sometimes do. However, the process wasn’t painstaking either. Rather, I was extremely focused and organized. As a result, it was more of a “plugging away” than a burst of creativity. I’m used to papers either flowing or feeling like pulling teeth, but this paper was neither. As a result, it’s been hard for me to gauge how I felt about what I’d written, and whether or not my paper feels done.
Thankfully, I’ve had a team of editors to look my work over, including Rhonda, Karen, Natalie, and my wonderful father. It was interesting, because I figured that my paper was pretty rough after I’d finished the first draft; however, it ended up being a lot more complete than I’d thought. Everyone gave me useful suggestions for cleaning up my writing and I’m glad I had more people read over my work this time around.
Because I was concerned that my “voice” wasn’t coming through and that my paper might sound too technical, I took Rhonda’s suggestion of changing it from the third to the second person where it seemed appropriate. I also tried to spice up my analysis with phrasing that sounded more like something I would say out loud, rather than me writing an “official” paper. Citations were also a little difficult to figure out for this paper, and I’m not totally sure that they’re all correct. For example, I had a hard time figuring out how to cite Facebook, because I couldn’t find any examples that weren’t for Facebook posts specifically. However, these are minor errors in formatting and they’ll be easy enough to fix if they need it.
Overall, I think my ideas flow fairly well, although I know fully explaining each of my ideas has been an issue of mine in the past, and I really just need to make sure that all my dots are connected. I’ve tried to do this as I touched up my paper, but I’m pretty sure there will inevitably be areas I’ve missed.
I had a really hard time writing my conclusion. Because I was mentally exhausted by the end, I just copied and pasted my conclusion from the second essay onto the first. However, it didn’t really fit well with my new paper, given that I had an actual argument this time. Writing my conclusion was probably the hardest part of the writing process, and I’m honestly a little not sure how well it functions. It’s definitely a huge improvement over what I had, but I’m still not sure if I’m entirely thrilled with it. I’m having a little trouble figuring out how to sum up my ideas and bring it back to a personal tone while still being compact. It’s definitely something I’ll keep in mind when revising for the final portfolio.